From one of the biggest geopolitical scares of the year to new record highs, investors have had a lot to digest this week. With the S&P 500 jumping to a new intraday record high of 1876.58 on Wednesday, the question now is what, if anything, will knock this rally lower as it approaches its five-year anniversary.

The S&P 500′s 1.5% gain on Tuesday, its best of the year, marked the sixth time during the past 15 months that the index rose by at least that much, according to Frank Cappelleri, a sales trader at New York brokerage firm Instinet. In his chart below, he shows that stocks have recently responded well to such big one-day gains.

What’s more, the S&P 500, the small-cap Russell 2000 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite on Tuesday all hit new 52-week highs on daily moves of more than 1% apiece. Including Tuesday’s action, this trio of events has occurred on the same day 40 times since 1979, according to SentimenTrader Daily Report.

Such a phenomenon has been followed by additional gains 70% of the time through three, six and 12-month time frames, with average gains of 3%, 5% and 8% respectively, Mr. Cappelleri says.

“Quite simply, broad market breakouts to new highs do not typically signify major tops,” he says. “Rather, they lead to mostly digestive action, allowing the market to catch its breath before following through.”

Bottom line: “It was delayed by a day, but we now have the follow through to last week’s breakout,” Mr. Cappelleri says. “This, of course, makes everything extremely extended once again, and, thus, also makes it even more difficult to think we can go higher still…

“But I think it is clear that focusing on price action is the most important practice, especially in a market like this,” he adds. “Monday gave us a scare, but other than 1850 failing to hold, no other support zones were violated. As long as that remains the case and the internals stay supportive, we have to continue to respect it.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently dropped 39 points, or 0.2%, to 16356, after Tuesday’s 228-point rally. The S&P 500 was flat at 1873 and the Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.1% to 4355, a 14-year high.